TALKING DIRTY TO THE GODS

Komunyakaa, although known for his wide-ranging experiments in open and closed verse forms, restricts his field here to a long cycle of verses of four quatrains each. Such a structure, even in the hands of a master, can become monotonous, but Komunyakaa pulls it off, expertly varying the prosody to achieve a fluid, fresh movement among ideas and rhythms. In keeping with his title, Komunyakaa sets out to create what amounts to a book-length meditation on the undersides of myth: sin, sex, putrefaction, stupidity, violence. The book hangs grinning between the titles of its first and last poems, "Hearsay" and "Heresy." As one of the oldest forms of lyric, the quatrain is thus a deliberate choice; the poet exploits its archaic power, balancing mythological sonorities with modern discoveries. Komunyakaa isn't afraid of poking a little fun at his own vast knowledge of Greek and Roman myth in the process. "Phocylides of Miletus," for example, begins: "Phocylides said this also: Please / Come back to bed, Love. / I didn't mean to blab / On & on, to bring into the bedroom those wormy / Epigrams." The best poems leave specific mythological references behind for a new myth woven out of contemporary horrors, as in "The God of Land Mines": "His face is a mouthless smile. / He can't stop loving steel. / He's oblong and smooth as a watermelon. / The contracts have already been signed. / Lately, he feels like seeds in a jar, / Swollen with something missing."

Here Komunyakaa comes across as a poet of both the small and the grand, a visionary who considers Eros and maggots with equal insight.